Block Reference

Documentation for each block type in the Ladder Script evaluation engine

Signature Family — 0x0001

Signature blocks verify cryptographic signatures against committed public keys. The foundation of UTXO authorization.

Timelock Family — 0x0100

Temporal constraints on spending — relative to confirmation (CSV) or absolute block height / timestamp (CLTV).

Hash Family — 0x0200

Hash preimage verification.

Covenant Family — 0x0300

Enforce constraints on how a UTXO can be spent by inspecting the spending transaction. No direct Tapscript equivalent.

Recursion Family — 0x0400

Self-referencing covenants — outputs that enforce spending back into the same or modified covenant structure.

Anchor Family — 0x0500

Commit to external state references — channel IDs, pool IDs, reserve requirements, oracle attestations, tamper-evident seals.

PLC Family — 0x0600

Industrial automation primitives for Bitcoin script. Hysteresis, timers, latches, counters, comparators, sequencers, rate limiters.

Compound Family — 0x0700

Common multi-block patterns collapsed into single blocks, reducing wire overhead.

Governance Family — 0x0800

Transaction-level constraints with no Tapscript equivalent. Inspect structure, weight, I/O counts, value ratios.

Legacy Family — 0x0900

Wraps Bitcoin's original transaction types as typed Ladder Script blocks. Same spending semantics, all fields typed. Closes inscription and data-embedding vectors.

Compact Encodings

Wire format optimisations using n_blocks == 0 sentinel within a rung. Not counted as separate block types.